Hacker News Reader

Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

I guess it's a sad world when I breathe a sigh of relief upon seeing that this didn't take place in the US.

I like how the agency gummed over the chip silkscreens so you can't see what chips they're using. Even though it's obvious that one is flash, another is a GPS module, and the third is the micro. And it appears that some scraping will show you the part numbers anyway. Amateur hour.

View on HN

This has already happened in the US. Pretty galling that the FBI requested one to be returned:

http://www.wired.com/2011/11/gps-tracker-times-two/ http://www.wired.com/2010/10/fbi-tracking-device/

Would be interesting if they could lift any prints from the tape on this newest one and publish them. I can't imagine it's easy to apply duct tape with gloves on.

The first article mentions a Supreme Court case in 2011 to "determine if authorities can track U.S. citizens with GPS vehicle trackers without a warrant" - anyone know what that case was or how it was decided?

9-0 unanimous that the police must have a warrant prior to using a GPS vehicle tracker. The reasonings differ among the justices but the vote was unanimous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Jones_%282012%...

Faith in humanity for today restored!

The split in reasons did lead to the fundamental question being sort of dodged. The majority opinion decided the case on quite narrow grounds: that the physical installation of the GPS device violated the 4th amendment, because installing it involved tampering with someone's personal property (the car) without a warrant. Four justices would have gone further and argued it would require a warrant to operate such a GPS tracker regardless of how it was installed, but the majority left that question unanswered.

You can replace "requested" with "threatened everything short of violence"

It's not like they don't know where it is, you'd think they could just go get it themselves.

Well they can't bust into your home and take it without a warrant, and it's probably easier to bully into handing it over than them admitting they done fucked up and getting a warrant.

They wouldn't know where it was after I disconnected the battery.

It does take place in the US though, just not this instance... http://www.wired.com/2010/10/fbi-tracking-device/

Edit: this is downvoted, but a similar comment with the same link, posted 10 minutes later, is upvoted? I don't understand.

present tense vs past tense?

Just because they were told they can't, that doesn't mean they won't, and they probably still do. In the present.

The goop on the chips is the funniest part - I've taken apart various bits of equipment (mostly from China) and they often attempt to obscure the part numbers to obfuscate, but even they know to grind/laser them off instead of putting goop on top... and it's still possible to figure out what they are just by their package and pinouts.

The low integration of the design suggests that it's probably at least 5 or more years old; these days, all that functionality would fit in 3-4 tiny BGA ICs.

The 'goop' could be a reaction product of applied acid to remove the markings on the chips.

The vendor obscures the chips because they sell these devices to agencies for thousands of dollars on government purchase orders. It wouldn't do for the customer to discover they could build these things for less than $100 in parts that anyone can order from anywhere.

Wouldn't surprise me if this was a one-off job. All those joints were hand-soldered, which is something you don't do unless you're the tiniest of tiny vendors, and someone who really didn't want to get people looking at it would have used something other than tape to wrap it up.

Government surveillance equipment is low volume and high margin, so hand assembly makes sense. The tape also makes sense as a way of disguising the device. A shiny plastic box wouldn't look like it belongs on the car, but most cars have wiring harnesses covered with black tape.

The more I look at what else is out there in vehicle tracking, the weirder this thing becomes. Other tracking devices that people have discovered [1] have been much more professionally assembled, with epoxy blobs coating interesting chips and everything. Additionally, fleet telemetric devices that are battery powered and use cell signals and gps also look a lot more professional than this, with plastic casings, neat soldering jobs, etc. This feels like an odd amateur tracking device of some sort, which IMO makes it even more interesting than a government tracker.

[1] http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2011/11/GPS-Tr...

That is extremely interesting. If it wasn't a legal authority that placed the device, then maybe the police can get involved and subpoena the sim card provider, ISP of whatever host the device connects to, etc.

What crime would they be investigating?

Good question. Maybe a statute against stalking would apply, or perhaps vandalism of a vehicle. These are not major offenses but they'd at least put the identity of the offender on record.

"If it's gonna be a amateur night, I want a hundred thousand dollars. I want it upfront. I want it in a bank account. I want another $100,000 when you get the case."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com